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Hickory Farms Founder Dies At 96
- The New York Times, Monday, April 18, 2016 8 AM
Richard K. Ransom was tired of driving a vegetable truck around rural Ohio for his parents’ wholesale produce business. So he started selling hand-cut cheeses at flower shows and boat shows. Soon he added summer sausage, then expanded to county fairs around the Midwest. He named his company Hickory Farms. It grew explosively in the early years, thanks to what was then a novelty: free samples.
